Comments on: Book Club Launch: Summary of Foreward & Intro from Martin Carcasson

By: Chris Berendes

Chris Berendes — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 04:03:25 +0000

Dave – What non-vague and hackneyed definition of legitimacy works best for you? Do you think that’s changed over the past half century?

By: Dave Sanford

Dave Sanford — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 17:58:16 +0000

Just catching up. Chris says above “processes that lead to perceived legitimacy in one time and context may fail in other times and contexts”, seems like if we use some vague and hackneyed description of legitimacy (e.g. greatest good for the greatest number) and whatever the best polling information for perceived legitimacy – sure deliberation and democracy have to always be evolving better methods and mechanisms or it will fail in both real legitimacy and perceived – which presumably is at least somewhat related. I expect that understanding the hidden factors will help.

By: Kim Crowley

Kim Crowley — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 04:12:58 +0000

Yael,

I hope you can join us two weeks from now when we discuss the Dryzek chapter. We’ll be looking at difference democracy including how to engage different kinds of people. I look forward to hearing more about your theater work!

By: Margaret Holt

Margaret Holt — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 21:02:39 +0000

Sandy, often when we talk about deliberation, we talk about what we are doing with others, but one of my NIF colleagues, Windy Lawrence (Texas), pointed out in an email in Februay the internal tension for individuals in a deliberation:

I think it’s at the heart of what we are trying to do when we deliberate – we are attempting to be authentic in our own voice, true to our life experiences, values etc., while simultaneously trying to remain open to the possibility of change – and these two forces are a tension that we carry with us as we deliberate. Windy Y. Lawrence, February 4, 2012

By: Margaret Holt

Margaret Holt — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 20:41:02 +0000

My experience with National Issues Forums suggests that many folks have not taken an opportunity prior to the forums to consider their own self interests, let alone those of others. They feel “tension”, but they haven’t named the tension. As ridiculous as this may sound, first they have to come into a space to talk. Something has to happen for people to recognize “we need to talk.”

By: Yael Harlap

Yael Harlap — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 20:46:27 +0000

Thought #1: How can people engage in deliberation when they have little knowledge – or worse, are misinformed – about an issue? The greatest challenge here, as I see it, is not how to get people to read in advance, or how to share information so people with different learning styles can learn (NOTE: much evidence suggests that people may have different learning preferences, but that there is really no such thing as “learning styles”). Rather, I think the challenge is that people come to the table with different ontological and epistemological perspectives. All the scientific evidence in the world is going to be unpersuasive to someone who dismisses the scientific method as a legitimate way to construct knowledge because that person has a different position on what kind of warrant would support a particular claim. How to get beyond that?

Thought #2: How to engage all sorts of people in a deliberative process? One way to engage a lot of people who are not already engaged is through the arts. If folks are interested in this, I’m happy to share some resources. Myself, I work with Theatre of the Oppressed (TO). The founder of TO, Augusto Boal, in his later years, developed what he called Legislative Theatre, which uses TO and other techniques to develop ideas that can then be applied through policy. There’s a lot more where that comes from…

By: Yael Harlap

Yael Harlap — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 20:28:54 +0000

Renee: I really appreciate your flagging the persistent dichotomizing of talk vs action.

By: Yael Harlap

Yael Harlap — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 20:26:25 +0000

This is just a short comment, but I think we have a quite good example of how citizen citizens CAN take on the tasks of dialogue and deliberation in the Occupy movement. There’s a lot to be learned from Occupy. Over here in little Bergen, Norway there isn’t much going on (people are too comfortable and wealthy to get hot and bothered about stuff – and they trust the government to do good on their behalf without asking enough questions about what that government is doing) – so I haven’t experienced Occupy firsthand. However, from what I have been reading here and there, it seems like a very interesting process of collective decision-making and action. AND also interesting how much push-back and call-out there has been from women and People of Colour organizing to make Occupy better – including an effort to change the movement’s name from a word that is associated with deep pain for indigenous communities (not to mention that from many First Nations/Native American perspectives, the whole of North America is already occupied…).

Anyhow, I ramble. But I was just struck by the potential usefulness of exploring a case example. Perhaps others here have more experience with the Occupy movement, or alternately, the World Social Forum, etc. It might be interesting to carry a case or two through our conversations about the book, as we move from one chapter to the next.

By: Kim Crowley

Kim Crowley — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 04:32:08 +0000

I see elitism as anything that develops unnecessary dependency on those who fit certain profiles. D & D, as commonly practiced, seems to favor a small subset of learning styles and personalities.

Possible antidotes to elitism:

1) Capacity building — Bring more skills to people in the general population. Create more room for the professional to sometimes become less like a surgeon called in when the situation gets really difficult and more like a health coach who prevents illness by making the patient stronger.

2) Pollinate in radically new venues — We’ll always have a need for the sequestered deliberation venue, but some portions of practice might be given new life out in the real world. Food for thought: What are the smallest practices that could survive and be effective if transplanted to another environment?

By: Kim Crowley

Kim Crowley — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 04:07:43 +0000

I’d like to shift the focus of the “tensions” question a bit from *degree* to the question of what *types* of tension matter most. In the best conflict resolutions I’ve created, I’ve gotten in the door at the point of surface tension, tunneled right past that to get inside, opened the windows to let out some of the steam, and then found that at core there never seems to be a tension in values, contrary to surface appearances.
 
We all seem to share the same core values that Mathews listed: “the need to be free, to be secure, to be treated fairly.” Tensions seem always to be about the “best” route to get to these values, not the values themselves. I think we two often get distracted by ineffectively choosing tensions to frame.

If tensions don’t actually lie in core values, then the real work is figuring out what criteria to program into our deliberative GPS in order to find satisfying routes to the core values we share. If we just ask for “best” route, we’re doomed. When we clarify what kind of route we want (scenic? least time? shortest distance? — to use the road metaphor) then the tensions among criteria no longer seem like tensions to me — they are just areas that need clarity when it comes to programming the dialogue software so to speak.